King's Cross

I went to St. Pancras today to get tickets for my trip to Nottingham tomorrow (another meeting). On the way there, I passed by the new Western Entrance to Kings Cross Underground, and on the way back, I passed through it. It is quite nice and airy, lots of space, certainly compared to the cramped roundel there was before. Spotless and clean too...until you get past the ticket barriers and into the actual tube.

I also dropped into the LCR exhibition on the channel tunnel rail link. This is located in a building called the Gymnasium, next to the entrance to St. Pancras. Quite a nice free exhibition with lots of scale models including one of Stratford circa 2012, and a coffee shop.

Nokia 770?

I have on my desk an Apple Newton Original MessagePad. "A what!" you say? Have a look at 'state of the art' circa 1993.



Seeing that video makes me want to go get some batteries and try it again, but I only found it because I was doing a comparison to get a sense of the size of the Nokia 770. Here it is:

Newton OMP: 18.4 x 11.4 x 1.9cm
Nokia 770: 13 x 7.8 x 1.8cm

So its basically the same size as the original Newton minus lots of bezel. In most ways though they aren't really comparable: the Netwon was primarily a PDA, and the Nokia is primarily an Internet Tablet. However the Newton wasn't always meant to be a PDA. It was originally meant to be a Knowledge Navigator. Again see here:



LOL, futurology at it's bonkers best. It looks like it is set around now. But replace the butler guy with Google's ever widening services (calendar, scholar search, google search, writely, gDrive, gmail, maps) and is it so far off?

Isn't the 770 essentially the realisation of the Knowledge Navigator? When it came out the main criticism was that it had too low memory for doing anything. Apparently the 2006 software update has gone some way to address this.

My main use of my PowerBook is for surfing and email, and I like to surf everywhere: bed, couch, toliet! I'm also happy surfing over the mobile phone...but the screen is too small. The 770 looks ideal for surfing, because unlike other wi-fi enabled PDAs, it has full-width 800x480 screen. On the other hand, when I'm watching video or writing my web pages or documents, I plug into my 17-inch LCD. Does this mirror anyone else's experience?



So today I put in a speculative bid for one on eBay, it sold for £196; in the end more than I was expecting, but still affordable...in this context: I am thinking that when the time comes to replace my PowerBook, I'll get a Mac Mini instead. That plus a 770 and I'll be set to go!

Or am I missing something here? Do you have a 770, what do you think?

Bright and breezy Bristol

Travelled to Bristol today for a work meeting. Lovely train journey on a lovely summers day and a very positive meeting.

I decided to ride from work to Paddington and normally this would take about 25-30 minutes. Certainly when I used to commute this way it would take about 30 minutes. Imagine my surprise though...I was in conversation and didn't notice the time. It was only 30 minutes before my train was going to leave! So I rushed to get the bike and set off at top flight, watching the clock. I got to Paddington 20 minutes later. Not bad at all eh?!

Empire Museum

Anyway, Bristol was looking marvelous in the summer sunshine and on the way back I popped into the British Empire Museum to ask a question. Last time I had visited I was disappointed not to find an Empire Map, did they have one? Yes, but in the book section (where I hadn't looked). I got an Empire map tea towel as well. Smashing.

Velorution

Rode past Velorution on the way to the gym today (finally found it after hunting and hunting for it on Sunday).

What a sexy bike shop! Pashley TSRs, Dahons, Bromptons, Birdys, and lots of funky european bikes like Helkama. Apparently they do servicing, so maybe I've found my new bike shop.

The Moulton Story

Read and learn the history of

The Moulton

I called the Bike shop last week. Somehow they don't have the parts for my service (i.e. they didn't order them). This is worrying now because my brakes are almost completely worn, near misses each day now... The service will be a major one, aside from brakes etc:

New 7-speed Megarange cassette
1-inch extension to the handlebar
Specialized BG2 Grips
Crane Creek (rather expensive) bar ends

...and I'll have the front forks re-sprayed from factory black to blue.

Postscript, regardez:

One is a Moulton and one a Raleigh Shopper type device. Note the difference, in size at least.

Sights from Lewisham People's Day

I got there about 16:00 and just a perfect time to arrive too. Nice cool weather and the entertainment was gearing up for adults.

This Music stand had Klezmer!

The Insect Circus Museum - the detailing was exqusitie (for adults) and the exhibits a marvel (for kids)

The Young Mayor's stage - all very hip, street music 'no violence please' - not my thing

It was the most popular stage

Fantastic - 'Spanish Bullfighters' They could hardly contain their glee at their antics. Great fun!

Brilliant soul music in the Pride tent.